THE AMERICAN BEE-KEEPER. 



January 



a standard frame, for they are sure to 

 be a vexation to you in the end. 



Don't conduct new and costly ex- 

 periments in your apiary until you 

 have had several years of experience 

 in the more common methods of bee- 

 keeping. By that time you will have 

 learned enough to let the other fellow 

 do the experimenting. Experiment- 

 ing is costly business, as I happen to 

 know by experience. I followed this 

 will-o'-the-wisp two or three years 

 and made some grand inventions and 

 many new and important discoveries, 

 but just as I was about to turn them 

 over to the bee-keeping public and 

 become its everlasting benefactor, I 

 invariably found that some other seek- 

 er had been there ten or fifteen years 

 before, and that tha thing I had spent 

 so much time and money on had long 

 since been discarded for having no 

 other merit than encumbrance. And 

 so it will be with any that go beyond 

 their light. 



Don't fail to get one or two good 

 standard works on bees and study 

 them carefully. Besides, subscribe to 

 one or more Bee Journals, or as many 

 as you can afford. I know the begin- 

 ner is apt to think he cannot afford 

 any, but the truth is if he has but one 

 or two colonies of bees, he cannot af- 

 ford to do without them. I take six 

 and my name is not Vanderbilt either, 

 but I get so much practical good out 

 of them I cannot afford to do with less. 



Don't get discouraged if your honey 

 crop don't equal your expectations. 

 There are years when the best of the 

 bee-keepers instead of getting honey 

 will have to go down in their pockets 

 to get food to winter the bees on. But 

 any bee-keeper worthy of the name 

 will take that as a matter of course 



and live in hopes of a better future. 

 Some other time I may tell you of 

 some of the failures I have made and 

 point out some of the things I stumbled 

 over. 



Franklin, Pa. 



^ ■■■ ^ — 



A Visit with a Neighbor. 



A LOOK ON THE DARK AND THE BRIGHT 

 SIDE OF THINGS. 



BY MRS. OLIVER COLE. 



" Good afternoon Mr. Titus, come 

 right along. You see I am very busy 

 with my pets. It is a lovely day and 

 the bees are flying. What little busy 

 bodies they are ; improving every 

 moment. Yes! it is remarkable weath- 

 er for this time of the year ; the 8th 

 of November. What good can they 

 do flying now ? They cannot gather 

 any honey for us. You see some col- 

 onies are bringing in pollen. What 

 good is that now ? No doubt they 

 have enough of it for they did not 

 make us a pound of honey. I have 

 no honey to eat on my buckwheat 

 cakes this winter, but we make a syrup 

 of granulated sugar, which is cheap, 

 and we should be thankful for that. 

 Besides I prefer it to honey." 



" What can bees get pollen from 

 now ? " 



" I cannot say unless they get it 

 from dandelions which the warm rain 

 brought forth these few warm days. 

 As 1 was crossing the river yesterday 

 I stopped and looked at them with a 

 thankful heart. It seemed like a 

 promise of plenty in the future. The 

 bringing in of pollen shows us the 

 strongest colonies with a prolific queen. 

 If we have thought that any were 

 without a queen, we know they have 

 when we see them work like this. I 

 could go around my apiary and select 



